They smash the shrines together on purpose. In the Nada district of Himeji, three portable shrines are slammed into one another with all the strength the bearers can muster. Why destroy them? Because it has long been believed that the harder they collide, the more the gods rejoice, the violence itself a form of prayer. Men in white loincloths shoulder the shrines, hundreds of them merging into a single mass, their voices rumbling like the ground itself. The other spectacle is the lavish floats, seven of them sheathed in gold leaf and brocade, hoisted high and paraded against each other. The festival's exact origins are debated, but it is held to be centuries old. The broken shrines are simply rebuilt, the breaking having become the rite. Within the roughness lies real reverence.